Bob Magaw
Footballguy
There are a few compilations from Sly's Stone Flower label period, the below "trailer" is on the more recent one, which covers '69-'70 [[another covers '65-'70 from this era]], and is sold as a sort of musical bridge, including material he produced, played on and engineered for other acts on the label (some were bands formed from within Sly & The Family Stone itself, not unlike previous Duke Ellington or Count Basie small group breakout bands - sort of like fractal funk! 
), between the very different classics Stand! and Riot. The early work he did in this period with a beat box/primitive drum machine was a big part of the ahead of its time, characteristic, signature, stacked and layered rhythms sound of Riot. Somewhat like Lee "Scratch" Perry in the reggae genre, Sly would just keep overdubbing and overdubbing layers of sounds on the track, until it was incredibly dense, like a thick electronic jungle of funk beats and grooves (come to think of it, this was probably an influence of On The Corner by Miles, in addition to avant classical/electronic composer Stockhausen, Sly was also an acknowledged influence of Hancock's Headhunters, it was the title of one of the songs in the first album - Brown, Sly and Jimi were huge influences on Miles when he pioneered fusion in the late '60s - early/mid '70s). One thing about this dense layering of overdubs (unlike antisceptically mixing with a computer in contemporary times), in the context of funk or reggae, you can't go back, rewind the tape, re-overdub and resume from where they had left off, so to speak. In that sense, the mechanics of this process resembled a difficult in-camera optical, special FX shot pre-CGI, that would have required in some cases (like composite shots in Blade Runner, with the smoke stack explosions in the foreground) many passes and rewindings of film. More to the point, they were alike in that if you made a mistake, it ruined the entire shot/take. But when it worked, it it really worked well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oCyHAhJgFA
Bobby Womack doc (1 hr). Reportedly Womack and Billy Preston (who played with the Beatles during the end, Let It Be period) contributed to Riot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1ZdgAzervA
* A look back at the epic arc of Sly Stone's brilliant, meteoric, troubled, erratic and prematurely self-inflicted damaged career, especially in the context of the making of his masterpiece Riot, titled Looking at the devil, by Barney Hoskyns for the Guardian. He is a talented author, and has written some books on rock history.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/mar/19/urban.popandrock
A broader, more synoptic overview of Sly's career.
http://swampland.com/articles/view/title:the_divine_spark_of_sly__the_family_stone
A more in-depth profile of Riot.
http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/thebookofseth/sly-and-the-family-stone-theres-a-riot-goin-on
** Three outtakes from the Riot sessions included on the bonus tracks version (also have for Stand! and Fresh, Hoskyns wrote the liner notes for the former), the first more killer than filler, the other two are more raw and skeletal but have discernible echoes of songs on the album.
My Gorilla Is My Butler.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwiM_qLrYhM
Do You Know What?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIuCZhxTBx4
That's Pretty Clean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P824CZwXGxU
Vintage Portrait of a Legend doc on Sly, in three parts (20+ minute total running time).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cPuiiKt8rs
), between the very different classics Stand! and Riot. The early work he did in this period with a beat box/primitive drum machine was a big part of the ahead of its time, characteristic, signature, stacked and layered rhythms sound of Riot. Somewhat like Lee "Scratch" Perry in the reggae genre, Sly would just keep overdubbing and overdubbing layers of sounds on the track, until it was incredibly dense, like a thick electronic jungle of funk beats and grooves (come to think of it, this was probably an influence of On The Corner by Miles, in addition to avant classical/electronic composer Stockhausen, Sly was also an acknowledged influence of Hancock's Headhunters, it was the title of one of the songs in the first album - Brown, Sly and Jimi were huge influences on Miles when he pioneered fusion in the late '60s - early/mid '70s). One thing about this dense layering of overdubs (unlike antisceptically mixing with a computer in contemporary times), in the context of funk or reggae, you can't go back, rewind the tape, re-overdub and resume from where they had left off, so to speak. In that sense, the mechanics of this process resembled a difficult in-camera optical, special FX shot pre-CGI, that would have required in some cases (like composite shots in Blade Runner, with the smoke stack explosions in the foreground) many passes and rewindings of film. More to the point, they were alike in that if you made a mistake, it ruined the entire shot/take. But when it worked, it it really worked well.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oCyHAhJgFA
Bobby Womack doc (1 hr). Reportedly Womack and Billy Preston (who played with the Beatles during the end, Let It Be period) contributed to Riot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1ZdgAzervA
* A look back at the epic arc of Sly Stone's brilliant, meteoric, troubled, erratic and prematurely self-inflicted damaged career, especially in the context of the making of his masterpiece Riot, titled Looking at the devil, by Barney Hoskyns for the Guardian. He is a talented author, and has written some books on rock history.
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/mar/19/urban.popandrock
A broader, more synoptic overview of Sly's career.
http://swampland.com/articles/view/title:the_divine_spark_of_sly__the_family_stone
A more in-depth profile of Riot.
http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/thebookofseth/sly-and-the-family-stone-theres-a-riot-goin-on
** Three outtakes from the Riot sessions included on the bonus tracks version (also have for Stand! and Fresh, Hoskyns wrote the liner notes for the former), the first more killer than filler, the other two are more raw and skeletal but have discernible echoes of songs on the album.
My Gorilla Is My Butler.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwiM_qLrYhM
Do You Know What?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIuCZhxTBx4
That's Pretty Clean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P824CZwXGxU
Vintage Portrait of a Legend doc on Sly, in three parts (20+ minute total running time).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cPuiiKt8rs
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